Son of the Morning by Mark Alder

and Edwin. He saw a monstrous cockroach on his arm, a head at either end. He pitied it, the poor soul forced to take its form from the offcuts of creation.
    ‘Forbid these things from harming us!’ Bardi’s knife was drawing blood. ‘Tell them to go back!’ Dowzabel’s fist was curled tight around the key but Edwin’s fingers prised his hand open and took it.
    Orsino stood in front of the demon, waving his sword, screaming that it had killed his friend. The demon ignored him, so Orsino swung a blow at its head. The sword went straight through it and emerged the other side in a burst of ashes, as if the demon’s body had no substance at all.
    ‘Fight me! Fight me!’ shouted Orsino, ‘you who killed Arigo!’
    ‘I will not fight you.’
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘You are not of God. Lucifer heard your curse echoing across all Hell when your family died and now Free Hell has claimed you. We have uses for you, Condottiere.’
    The words seemed to stun the man. He sank to his knees, crossing himself, shouting out that he hadn’t meant what he had said, that his mind had been disordered by grief, that he would do penance and go on crusade.
    Dow spoke to the demon with his mind. What am I to do? Don’t leave me with these men . Stay and talk to me, soft demon .
    ‘Do what they say and you will have nothing to fear from them. Find the banner. Free Hell charges you with that.’
    Where shall I look ?
    ‘I cannot tell, but there is a phrase on the wind. Can you not hear it?’
    A wind was springing up, stirring the ashes, stirring the parchments.
    I hear nothing.
    The demon put his hand to his ear. ‘The king in the east.’
    Dow sank to his knees. Looming before him through the smoke was a man, richly dressed but his face flayed. His coat was torn away at one arm and Dow saw he had writing of some sort down it. His neck bore an ugly wound all around it and a strange lacing through the wound. It looked as though he had his head tied on by twine. Bardi screamed when he saw the man, his legs doing a little back and forth as he tried to decide whether to leap out of the circle and face the fire demon or remain in the circle and face the bizarre figure that was materialising in front of him. Dow choked and spat. The demons in the circle scrabbled and screamed to be free. ‘A devil! A devil. He comes for us! Let us fly!’ A hand groped from the smoke to grab at Bardi. The rich man let Dow go and frantically stabbed at the creature’s arm with his dagger.
    ‘You!’ said the devil. ‘You played me most false, banker!’ It grabbed the dagger arm.
    ‘It’s trying to drag me to Hell! It’s trying to drag me to Hell!’ screamed Bardi.
    ‘Quickly!’ said the fire demon, ‘He cannot be allowed through! Close the gate!’
    Another devil appeared – a monstrous head on a pair of legs, stuffing the tiny demons into its mouth. Dow recognised the face – it was that of the priest who had cut his tongue. Dow was stiff with fear. He remembered that so clearly – the bleak summer, so far from home, the Plymouth sea front, grey on grey, and the shears on his tongue. He’d thought he would die, drown on his own blood. That priest’s face was in front of him now, leering through darkness. ‘You speak like a serpent, so you shall have a serpent’s tongue,’ he’d said.
    They’d let him go then and he’d gone – back to the Devil’s Men, back to find Nan’s body on that sparse hill, to call the others to it to make a fire of heather and gorse and return her to the light of which she was made. He’d vowed as he’d watched her burn that the priest would come to regret letting him go. The Devil’s Men had finally got him coming back from Lostwithiel. He’d died too quick for Dow’s liking.
    Dow felt faint at the memories. He had a sense of a gate or a door through which the devil who had grabbed Bardi was summoning the courage to pass. He could not let it. Bardi howled and screamed.
    ‘Release me! Release me! I never